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Dessert

Nut Cake

A baked cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, syrup, raisins, citron, nuts, spices, brandy, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Nut Cake

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Nut Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the syrup, raisins, citron, and mixed nuts.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the cinnamon, cloves, allspice, mace, baking soda, and flour.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 2 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for a light crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten the crumb.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, syrup, raisin, almond, cinnamon):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, syrup, raisin, almond, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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